A leaked copy of an “in-confidence” draft of the Anti-Terrorism Bill 2005 has confirmed the police-state character of the measures being drawn up by the federal Howard government, with support from the Australian state and territory chief ministers. Under the guise of combatting terrorism, the legislation will introduce unprecedented and draconian police and intelligence powers.

Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Chief Minister Jon Stanhope posted the document on his official web site last Friday, provoking furious denunciations by Prime Minister John Howard and other ministers, who had planned to keep the legislation under wraps until November 1. Their intention was to push it through both houses of parliament in just two weeks, without any serious debate by MPs, let alone genuine public scrutiny and discussion.

The secret draft puts into black and white what was agreed by Howard and the Labor Party chief ministers—including Stanhope—at a two-hour closed-door Council of Australian Governments “counter-terrorism summit” on September 27. Taken as a whole, the Bill represents a wholesale assault on fundamental democratic rights, including freedom from arbitrary arrest, free speech and the freedom of political association.

First and foremost, the legislation provides for extensive detention without charge or trial, on the flimsiest of pretexts. With no notice or legal hearing, any person can be thrown into secret “preventative detention” or placed, by a “control order,” in isolation under house arrest.

Any application made by such a person to a court to overturn the internment could take weeks, if not months, effectively giving the federal government (and the state and territory governments, which have pledged to pass matching legislation) unchecked powers.........

CANBERRA (AFX) - The Australian Senate has held a special sitting to rush through amendments to anti-terrorism laws, a day after Prime Minister John Howard said he had received credible reports of a possible attack.

Howard said it was urgent the amendments, which make it easier for police to prosecute terrorist suspects, be passed because of the threat of an attack, which experts believe targeted the southern city of Melbourne.

The changes allow police to immediately act against terrorist suspects involved in the early stages of planning attacks, instead of forcing them to wait until they have specific details of an imminent attack.

Howard has refused to reveal details of the alleged plot that prompted his warning, saying only 'the concerns we have are not totally related to matters distant to Australia,' Agence France-Presse reported.

The lack of detail has led critics of the conservative government to accuse Howard of issuing the warning to help push through a raft of new anti-terrorism laws that have been labelled by critics as a threat to civil liberties.

Howard dismissed the suggestion, saying he needed to immediately provide police and intelligence services with the powers to respond to the latest threat.

But Howard said he could not disclose the plot to the Australian public without rendering useless the intelligence it was based upon.

'You're damned if you do and damned if you don't,' he told commercial radio. 'It's the eternal dilemma of somebody in my position.'

Clive Williams, a former Australian intelligence official who now lectures on terrorism at the Australian National University, said his sources told him the plot involved an attack on Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city.

Williams said he understood it involved three suspects in Sydney and Melbourne, one of whom had links to Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which the Australian government officially declared a terrorist organisation in November 2003.

He said the suspects were believed to have filmed potential targets in Melbourne and their actions had led to three raids in Sydney in June this year.

'At this stage, as I understand it, the activity is largely in the very early planning stages. It's two persons in Sydney talking to others in Melbourne about potential targets,' Williams told Channel Nine.

'One of the persons apparently was identified by an American informant as having attended a LET, a Lashkar-e-Taiba, camp in Pakistan, and they've been talking to others in Melbourne apparently about what sort of targets they could attack.

'So it's sort of very early stages and that's why the government wants to change the law in the way it does.'

Williams said the government and intelligence were erring on the side of caution by publicly acting on the threat.

'It's now compromised the operation and means that it will probably be very difficult to get a conviction,' he said.

'The alternative of course was to allow it to go through to the point where there was specificity as to time and place, but then there's the danger of it getting closer to fruition, so maybe the government didn't want to take that chance.'

Police stand outside a Sydney apartment building Tuesday after executing a search warrant.

Raids in Sydney and Melbourne 'significantly disrupt' a terrorist plot Manage Alerts | What Is This? SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Australian authorities have arrested 17 people Tuesday on counterterrorism charges in Melbourne and Sydney and credited their 18-month investigation with averting terrorist bombings.

Australia's Sky News services reports that one suspect who had been under surveillance was shot and wounded by police involved in the raids. Police did not immediately confirm the man was a terror suspect.

An Associated Press photographer on the scene said a bomb squad robot was being used to examine a backpack the suspect was wearing when he was shot, The Associated Press reports.

The men have been charged with offenses "that include sections of Commonwealth legislation that have not been previously used, relating to being a member of a terrorist group, conspiring to commit a terrorist act and directing a terrorist organization," the Australian Federal Police said in a written statement.

The arrests followed the execution of 22 search warrants across Sydney and Melbourne Tuesday morning during which a range of material "including unidentified substances, firearms, travel documents, computers and backpacks" was seized, the statement said.

"By working collaboratively, Australia's law enforcement and intelligence agencies have managed to disrupt the alleged activities of this group and therefore protect the Australian community from a potential terrorist threat," Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner John Lawler said.

Police arrested eight people in New South Wales state and nine people in Victoria state.

The charges include acts in preparation of a terrorist act, being a member of a terrorist group, and conspiracy to commit a terrorist act.

One man also has been charged with directing a terrorist organization.

"Today's arrests follow a lengthy operation where law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been monitoring and investigating the activities of a group allegedly intent on carrying out what we assess as some sort of terrorist act in Australia," NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said.

"It will be alleged in court that following months of discussion, individuals had moved to the point of planning some sort of activity including the purchase of potentially dangerous materials."

Asked if bombings had been planned, Moroney said, "Certainly so."

Chemicals that, when mixed, could have made a bomb, were confiscated, he said.

Those arrested "don't appear to belong to an organization by name, per se," but the two groups were closely connected, Moroney said.

At least five of the eight taken into custody in New South Wales were Australian citizens, though they were born elsewhere, he said.

"It's not so much the nature of the ethnic origin or any religious issue; the prime issue for us as law enforcement agencies certainly has to be the prevention and investigation of acts of terrorism."

The warrants are part of a joint counterterrorism operation by the Australian Federal Police, New South Wales Police, Victoria Police, the New South Wales Crime Commission and Australian Security Intelligence Organization.

The arrests come less than a week after Prime Minster John Howard held a nationally televised news conference in which he said Australia had received intelligence about a "terrorist threat."

Howard also recalled Australia's upper house of parliament so it could pass urgent amendments to controversial anti-terror laws on Thursday which now allow police to charge people in the early stages of planning an attack.

Australia, a steadfast ally of the Bush administration, has never suffered a major terror attack on home soil but its embassy and citizens have been targeted in neighboring Indonesia.

Eighty-eight Australians were among the 202 people killed in the October 2002 Bali nightclub bombings.

The country has been on medium security alert since shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.